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Inside Politics

Ted Turner, CNN Founder And Philanthropist, Dies At 87. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 06, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Our deepest, deepest condolences to his family. And as we say, may his memory be a blessing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: We said, sets your goal so high that you can't achieve them in your lifetime. I don't know how to quit. It's not in my genes. I worked till seven o'clock, and when I got home, the news was over. So, I missed television news completely, and I figured there were lots of people like me. It was more than -- just a company to me, it was -- it was a way of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: We are honoring the life and legacy of the Titan who founded and built CNN, transforming how the world experiences, the events shaping our lives as they happen.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

And we begin with a profound loss for the CNN family. Our network's founder, Ted Turner, died today at the age of 87. Ted Turner was a pioneer. He didn't just build the first Cable News Network. He created the modern experience of watching history unfold live around the globe, from space shuttle challenger, disaster to the fall of the Berlin Wall, multiple wars, most notably live on the ground coverage from Baghdad in the first Gulf War, which was absolutely revolutionary.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer looks back at the extraordinary life of a man who changed television news forever.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He broke every mold. He changed the world.

BLITZER (voiceover): He known as the mouth of the south and captain outrageous, Ted Turner built a media empire that changed Cable News forever.

TURNER: I don't know how to quit. It's not in my genes. BLITZER (voiceover): Ted got his start working for his dad's billboard company in his early 20s, but tragedy struck when his father killed himself.

TURNER: He went against everything that he -- that he taught me be courageous and hang in there.

BLITZER (voiceover): Ted took over the family business.

TURNER: He said, set your goals so high that you can't achieve them in your lifetime.

BLITZER (voiceover): When Ted wasn't working, he turned to the sport he loved, sailing. And won the sports top race, the America's Cup. He put that same drive into expanding the business. In 1970, Ted bought a struggling TV station, and it became the country's first superstation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to transform UHF television into this new world of satellite television.

BLITZER (voiceover): As he built the super, he set his sights even higher on a 24-hour news channel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of the leaders of the world thought Ted was nuts.

TURNER: I dedicate the news channel for America, the Cable News Network.

BLITZER (voiceover): CNN aired its first broadcast on June 1, 1980. It took five years to turn a profit.

TURNER: I lived for 20 years in my office. You can see her there --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted didn't care as much about ratings as he did about being the most trusted name in news.

BLITZER (voiceover): Ted also cared about the world. He donated a billion dollars to the United Nations.

TURNER: I'm no poorer than I was nine months ago, and the world is a lot better off.

BLITZER (voiceover): And he expanded his empire, launching networks like TNT and Turner Classic Movies. In his personal life, Ted was married and divorced twice, with five children before he finally met his match, Jane Fonda.

JANE FONDA, ACTRESS: I've never met any human being that thinks the way Ted does.

BLITZER (voiceover): In 1996, he sold his networks to Time Warner. He got almost $8 billion. 5 years later, Time Warner merged with AOL, and Ted was out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted used the description, I've been fired. Ted got shafted, and it hurt.

BLITZER (voiceover): He lost his empire and the love of his life. After 10 years of marriage, he and Jane parted ways, but Ted never gave up. His final act saving the planet, he created the UN Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. He made it his mission to save the bison. And he opened restaurants to ensure their survival.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted's love of the outdoors has made him perhaps the number one environmentalist that I've ever known.

BLITZER (voiceover): Before his 80th birthday, Ted revealed he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive disease. He spent his final years treasuring private moments, his ranch and his family.

[12:05:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have never seen a man quite like Ted Turner before on this planet and I don't think we'll ever see another one like him again.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BASH: Here with me now are two CNN greats who worked with Ted Turner, knew him well, Frank Sesno and Judy Woodruff, saying that I actually got the chills. Thank you both for being here. Frank, you started with CNN in 1984, so not long after Ted Turner founded this network. It's really, I think, hard to encapsulate the kind of impact he had because it was so vast and so deep. How would you describe it?

FRANK SESNO, WORKED AT CNN FROM 1984-2001, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 2005- 2009: So vast and so deep. And it was CNN and it was TNT, and it was TBS, and it was the cartoon channel, and it was programming on CNN, and it was programming Captain Planet, right, was a show that, if you go around and talk to millennials today, a lot of them say they grew up on it and gave them some of their first ideas of what the planet was all about and how you could be a hero and save the planet with a whole bunch of people who didn't look like you, right? There was very, very interesting stuff that was going on there, and that continues to this day.

When I joined CNN in 1984, it was not known very much. And I have this funny story. I joined as a general assignment correspondent. I came out of radio. I had a great face for radio, but they hired me anyway, probably because nobody was watching really at the time, and I got sent over to the White House. I remember calling the lower press office one day and saying, Frank Sesno from CNN, and is like, what? What's CNN? And they said, is this the phone company? And the phone company at the time was CNP, Chesapeake & Potomac.

BASH: Oh, my God.

SESNO: And I said, no, its Ted Turner's news network, and that's how they knew. So, it was always tied to Ted's persona, his ambition, his audacious nature, and it took a while before we made any money. Those first few years when I was here, there was no money for anything. And the tide slowly turned and it became a global behemoth. BASH: And Judy, you were the anchor of this program in its earlier and original existence inside politics. I remember what huge deal it was that CNN snagged you. You were a big network star, and you decided to come to a Cable News Network. That was a big deal for us.

JUDY WOODRUFF, FORMER CNN ANCHOR, WORKED AT CNN FROM 1993-2005: I don't know how much of a big deal it was --

BASH: It was. Talk about that decision?

WOODRUFF: Well, I was -- I had been at PBS, at the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil for 10 years. And I ran into a very determined Tom Johnson at a dinner in Washington right after the presidential election in 1992 and he was a very -- he's a very persuasive person, is now a very dear friend, and said, we want you to come to CNN, be part of this global news organization, 24/7.

It was tough, because I love what I was doing at the NewsHour and PBS, and later ended up going back there. But Tom was persistent and the more he described the vision that Ted Turner had, and I got to sit down and talk to Ted.

BASH: What was that like?

WOODRUFF: In Atlanta? It was memorable, and I'll tell the story. I've told it before, so forgive me if you've heard it. But I -- one of the first things I wanted to ask him was, I said, I've been doing journalism for a while, but what do you think about women in journalism? How seriously do you treat the idea? He said, are you kidding? I'm married to Jane Fonda. And the subject was put to rest.

But he -- it was clear his vision, as Frank has said. I mean, we all made fun of CNN in those early days. It wasn't, you know, how could you possibly turn this tiny, little operation into something meaningful. And yet, after the Gulf War in 1990, Bernie Shaw, who was a colleague of all of us, beloved the late Bernie. He and I co- anchored Inside Politics for a long time. Ted managed to turn this into a significant player and frankly to change journalists.

BASH: So, you mentioned the Gulf War. I'm glad you did. I want to play a little bit of what Ted Turner said about that moment, that event, the first Persian Gulf War, and how that really put CNN on the map.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: I got up and I turned on the television, and I turned to NBC, and there was Tom Brokaw talking about the war. And I flipped over to ABC and there was Peter Jennings talking about -- sitting at desk, talking about the war. And I flipped over to CBS and there was either Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite, whoever was there, talking about the war. And then I flipped over to CNN, and there was the war. I missed the first shot, but not by much, maybe five minutes or so. And I said, I still believe that that was the greatest scoop in the history of journalism.

[12:10:00] BASH: And it's hard for people, maybe now, to really comprehend why that was such a scoop, and we can play, I think, some of the -- of the video of the Scud missiles, and Bernie Shaw and others were talking from there about what it was like. So, it's hard to imagine because we all have our phones and things are happening real time when we're getting it in our pockets. But the idea of having live coverage during an actual war was unprecedented.

SESNO: And I was at the White House then, we were counting that down, and I was -- we were contacted. Wolf Blitzer was contacted over at the Pentagon by people saying, get your people out of Baghdad, the bombing is about to start. And the conversations that Ted and Tom Johnson and others had were, we're going to defer this decision to you. And as Ted said, being there and Bernie famously saying, you know, the sky is lit up with this.

A billion people around the planet watch CNN because CNN's feed went to virtually every other, you know, network, and it put us in a completely different place. And it really was -- it was the execution of incredible women and men at CNN to do that, and getting the four- wire in there, which Eastern Jordan helped to -- help to lead and to do, but it was Ted's notion and vision that made that happen.

WOODRUFF: And every newsroom was watching CNN. I mean this again, this was the network that years earlier, people were making fun of. Every newsroom was tuned, had the TVs screens on, as you do right now, tuned to CNN because it was the only news organization with live coverage of what was happening. And Bernie Shaw, Peter Arnett, the other amazing journalists who were there in Baghdad really made history.

SESNO: And I have to say that we saw it was just -- it wasn't just sort of reporting the news, it was changing the way the world communicated. So, I had people at the White House come to me and literally say, gee, we don't need the CIA anymore, because we're getting information quicker across CNN, because our cameras were on and we were taking it long.

BASH: Yeah.

SESNO: So, it revolutionized the way the world communicated.

BASH: A real quick. You are now at GW, my alma mater. Can you just discuss the scholarship in his name --

SESNO: Sure. So, some years ago, I got together with Ted and several others, and we came out of that when Ted was first diagnosed with Lewy bodies disease, and said -- and I said, we need to remember him. We need to enshrine this work. And we went to work, and we raised the money, and we now have the Ted Turner Endowment. The Ted Turner Endowment at George Washington University funds the Ted Turner Professor of Environmental Media, and we have an annual lecture in his name. And the Ted Turner Professor of Environmental Media will teach students to be storytellers forever, reflecting Ted's commitment to the planet, conservation and environmentalism.

WOODRUFF: Amazing. I mean, his legacy. You've been talking about it here on CNN all morning, the planet, the environment, peace in the world and the news media. And who knew back in those early days, Dana, that that he would transform journalism as he had.

BASH: Right. Thank you so much. It is such an honor to have you both here to discuss --

SESNO: Honor to be here, a sad moment, but an appropriate time to reflect on what Ted created --

BASH: And celebrate --

WOODRUFF: And our hearts go out to his family.

SESNO: Absolutely.

BASH: And up next. CNN Chairman and CEO, Mark Thompson, will be here to reflect on how Ted Turner transformed global news. Stay with us.

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[12:15:00]

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does Ted Turner have any political ambitions, and would he like to be president of the United States?

TURNER: I get asked that question from time to time, and I really think that I can make a greater contribution at the current time, certainly by building up this global communication system. Right now, they can watch this program in Moscow and Tokyo and Australia and London. I mean, we're being watched all over the world. This is the first global network. And I think that that I can -- I can perform probably as great a function in the media right now as I could there, you know, and then there's always the problem of getting elected, which is not easy by any manner of me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: We remember the life and legacy of CNN's founder Ted Turner. And as we do, I want to bring in our current CEO and Chairman, Mark Thompson. Mark, thank you so much for being here. You have been the head of CNN for about two and a half years, but I know that you met Ted Turner many, many years before that. Talk about that?

MARK THOMPSON, CNN CHAIRMAN AND CEO: Well, and what a complete -- what a complete legend he was, and as I first bumped into CNN chairman square in 1989, first Gulf War in the field. And they were doing -- you guys were doing news in a different way. It was flexible, it was agile, it was fast. And I very quickly. You know, even before coming to America for the first time, we got to know the story of CNN and Ted Turner.

I only eventually met him, I think, in the 1990s when I was quite senior at working at the BBC in the U.K., but with plenty of business in America and some business of CNN and encountered the human being and this kind of absolute force of nature, incredibly visionary. I was just that clip -- you just played the idea of the global news provider, which the BBC had sort of done before that with the BBC World Service, but the kind of -- the way thought about it is going to be television.

[12:20:00]

I can be more influential with that than I could be, even if I was president United States. That is so future, forward looking, and the impatience, the vision, the sheer drive. I mean, you know this because you met him many times as well. He was unique. He's a unique figure. And we've lost one of our giants, one of -- I said to my colleagues today, he was the -- he's the giant on whose shoulders we stand today, and what he stands for, innovation, disruption.

Don't just go with what we -- what you've always done, try and think big and be prepared to take very big risks to meet the moment, whenever that moment is. I mean that -- I think he should -- as has always been, I think the true spirit of CNN, and we need to really embrace that again, I think today.

BASH: Yeah. No, I totally agree. I have been with the network a very long time. This is my 33rd year, but I started Barry Jr., and by the time I maybe got into a position where I could really get to know him, he had left CNN, but obviously his legacy was so huge. But when I started this network Mark was the way you're describing it, very scrappy. We were, you know, the Davids to the Goliath networks around us. And there weren't a lot of people, and we worked really hard, and we broke a lot of news.

I would argue we still do that, but in a very different way. And what I'm curious about is your interactions with Ted Turner when you became the head of CNN, because I know that you went down and had lunch with him right when you started. And how he sort of connected his vision for CNN to what he saw you doing as you took over the reins.

THOMPSON: Well, I mean -- I mean, the first thing I just want to say is, is literally my first thought when I was offered the job of running CNN was to go and see Ted. I mean, just -- and to meet him, try and get his blessing in in some way, you know. I mean, I wanted to, you know, believe that I could be not a worthy successor. There are no worthy successors to Ted Turner, actually, but do my best to keep his vision going and his spirit of disruption and change and risk taking.

And so, you know, that happened a few weeks after I started. And indeed, we were in the throes of the terrible Hamas attack in early October 2023 on Israel and the awful human consequences that, so we were already in very, very big news at that point. And we had a great time. And Ted was, you know, at this point, not in -- not in great health, but knew who I was. I think remembered meeting me.

And there you can see us right there, that's in a rather historic office. He has that down in Atlanta, which in some ways was the nerve center of the whole operation. And when we -- you know, I always think the -- when we did the debate, which you, you moderated with Jake, the Trump-Biden debate in 2024. That studio is only a few yards from the place where CNN began.

And I think the sense of the heritage and history of CNN, but also still, I hope it's questing spirit. And we've got very big challenges now with the future of media, we're having to break into new platforms and master it, even though we've got far fewer resources than many of our competitors. And I think that feels very familiar to anyone who's aware of the CNN history of the little guy who's a bit more resourceful and brave than the big players, and in the end, can actually do a better job than them. So that's what we have to do again today.

And I do think -- I mentioned Ted every time I talk to my colleagues, pretty much, every single time, you'll know this. I'm constantly evoking Ted because I think that is the spirit the media needs now, particularly legacy media, given the enormous number of challenges we have and the fundamental changes in the way audiences want news.

I mean, Ted's great insight is that the public, not just in America, but around the world, they want news when they want it and when they need it, which is not, you know, a part of a like a network schedulers convenient agenda, it's when the news happens or when they want to catch up. And that idea of news, which is there when you want it, and nowadays, on the device you want it, and it done in a way which is not over complicated.

It doesn't require too much of you. If you've only got a few minutes, it's still really useful. That spirit, I think, and the basic notion of CNN is valuable today as it was in the early 80s when he launched it, except that the modality and the platform and how you reach people and the devices are now. There's lots of them. They're very different. They're evolving very rapidly, and we just have to discipline ourselves to accept that and respond to it.

[12:25:00]

BASH: Well said. Thank you so much for coming on and remembering the founder of this amazing network, and the man who obviously did so much more philanthropically -- go ahead.

THOMPSON: I mean, truly one of the great -- one of the greats in our industry and irreplaceable and unique and great sadness today. But I think a lot -- what a life to celebrate as well. So, everyone at CNN is thinking about Ted now. Everyone, by the way, at Warner Bros. Discovery, our parent company. My boss, David Zaslav is, you know, was talking to John Malone earlier today. And there's a real sense of sadness but also pride in what he did and just the pride of having known him a little bit.

BASH: Mark Thompson, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it. And up next. CNN's coverage of the Gulf War, as we've been discussing, it really put the network on the map in 1991. It was one of Ted Turner's proudest moments. Nic Robertson was in Baghdad. He's going to be on next to share some of his memories. Plus, as we go to break, some words from Ted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: I wish God had made us just a little bit smarter, you know, smart enough to where we didn't go to war with each other and practice cruelty on each other, if we were nice to each other. That's kind of world that I envision and the world that I've been working for. One that where everybody helps everybody else out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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